User talk:John Callender

Welcome to Wikipedia, John, and be glad that you ended up on one of the more civilized Creation/evolution pages.

POV advocacy is a major problem in some topics which is why I restrict myself to only a few of the more controversial ones and work on nice peaceful topics when I can. The editors on Creationism are being quite restrained (at least at the moment), believe it or not. If you look through the history, you can see when edit wars take off. At least its mostly on the Talk page now.

All you can really do to fight POV is be vigilant in challenging and quick in correcting/rewriting blatant POV statements and I would urge you to put your own version of "the ability to believe in both creation and science" paragraph into the article, revised if you want in the light of the comments on the Talk page. It may last if it doesn't offend either side too much. Glad to have some common sense around. Dabbler 21:50, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I am definitely a Aubrey-Maturin reader, I started with Forester when I was a teenager, went through Alexander Kent's earlier books and then found O'Brian and have rarely looked back. I am a member of an Aubrey Maturing e-mail list and have been for nearly nine years! I know a number of people who have found the first book a bit slow. Because I first found them in a library I think I started with the second, Post Captain, or third, HMS Surprise. They are definitely easier to read than the first, Master and Commander. O'Brian writes more convoluted sentences, is less a direct narrative and less action oriented, and also he tends to be more into the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin. Historically O'Brian is much closer to the source materal. Some of his "plots" are direct rewriting of actual incidents. O'Brian also displays a wonderful sense of humour with some passgaes making me literally laugh out loud. I now find Hornblower just too introspective and self-doubting and even depressing. I would urge you to try O'Brian again and if you find M&C doesn't grab you try one of the next two. Can you tell I am a fan? Dabbler 01:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"I'm curious what you'd consider necessary to change in ... hope we can continue to improve the article, to the point where you no longer think the NPOV-dispute flag is necessary. Thanks. -- John Callender 01:09, 11 July 2005 (UTC)"

As you may have noticed I don't have that much time lately. I'd consider it reasonable that the NPOV-dispute flag be considered "expired", and removed at the discretion of others, such as you.

I'm pleased to find such a cooperative voice. :-) I'll take a look and discuss when I have time. Perhaps an RFC would be more fitting, if for no other reason than because an article of such central political importance deserves more attention from the community than it seems to be getting. Cheers! Kevin Baastalk: new 02:26, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Hi there, when trying to go over the discussion at 2003 invasion of Iraq I saw it has become a big mess. If I see it correctly there was a conflict between an anon and others and now the page has been blocked. I think the anon had a point that an encyclopedia article about any military conflict should not be written exclusively by three members of one the conflicting parties, in this case Pookster11, Swatjester, and Dawgknot who according to this comment all belong to the US military. I therefore suggest to get more people into the boat, that should take the wind out of the sails of bias allegations. As I saw you also edited on that page, would you be willing to help out? Get-back-world-respect 22:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

MONGO undid your reversion at George W. Bush substance abuse controversy. I re-reverted and posted my justification. anything you have to add (or change) would be welcome. I personally think MONGO is forcing POV into the article. I also don't know that he really cares about the article; he only got back into it, I think, because I pointed out that he, in an offhand comment, was wrong to confuse a celebrity tabloid with a monsters-from-outer-space one. Now he's just being stubborn. Turly-burly 03:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You guys don't know a lot about me...I have 1,000 edits alone just to the article and discussion pages on the George W Bush article...so in all liklihood, I do have a POV. Though I didn't create the substance abuse article, it's creation was due to my fight to keep that slanderous nonsense off the main page. But since you insist in acting in tandem, I can't beat that and will bow to the concensus of silliness in article space. The only reason you want a non fact based opinion of GWB drinking again has nothing to do with article integrity and everything to do with silly innuendos that feed the pig troughs of the anti-Bush crowd. How childish can you get? I mean...did either of you bother to really look at that NE link?...it's hardly what I would call worthy of our efforts here to build a fact based reference source.--MONGO 15:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Neither John Callender nor I have politicized this, so I don't think it's fair to insinuate that we've teamed up to force our political opinions on the article. I think JCallender would agree that it doesn't matter which article this argument concerns. I personally would rather this have taken place over NE quotes in an article about pigeon-raising or red beans. What I have been trying to do is determine the role "rumor and speculation" should play in Wikipedia articles, which is why I posted as neutral a question as I could at the Village Pump. I think that clearly-labeled "rumor and speculation" should be allowable, at the very least because it contributes to the body of information an article provides. Whether or not this information is based in fact or fantasy is up to the reader to decide: if the rumor is clearly-labeled, he has been warned that the information may in fact be false. Knowing the fact that a certain rumor exists might open doors for further discovery, e.g. hearing that there may be a western passage from Europe to East Asia might prompt someone to look into it. As to the source of a rumor, I don't think it matters how reputable it is; anyone can hear rumors/make speculation. Capitol Hill Blue's speculation is every bit as valid as NE's, and both may be as reliable and rooted in fact as speculation anyone else has made or a rumor anyone else has heard. I'd rather give people the choice to believe -- as JCallender pointed out -- than presume to take it from them. If JCallender's grandfather wrote an article about how he heard that Coca-cola could power rocket ships, I could quote that in a rumors section, I think, without leading people to challenge the integrity of an article about rocket fuel. I think that reaching concensus about "rumor and speculation" would contribute to article integrity, much more than does picking and choosing whose rumors to believe and dismissing sources in charged language without due consideration. Turly-burly 04:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

"In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it. If it is important enough to keep, attribute it to the source in question. For example: "According to the British tabloid newspaper The Sun ..."

Note that in this example, a tabloid is cited, as its use is justified in that what it adds to the article is "relatively unimportant", i.e., what it adds is important. (...)

"The following is just as weaselly: "The president's critics have suggested that George W. Bush may be a functional illiterate." If we add a source for the opinion, the reader can decide for themselves how they feel about the source's reliability: "Author Michael Moore in his book Stupid White Men wrote an open letter to George Bush asking, 'George, are you able to read and write on an adult level?'" (My emphasis)

In this example, a cited opinion is left intact in the article in order to let the reader decide what they will believe." Turly-burly 09:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi there, thanks for your message. I understand your reasoning - and here's an alternative reference: http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=39026 (from the UCLA student newspaper). This source is actually already in the article under footnote 6. I think you can just add a reference to that footnote too rather than add the link in a new footnote. I'm not sure how that affects the ordering though (I'm not that experienced with footnote code... I generally just copy an existing footnote codestring and use that as a framework. hope that help, Bwithh 02:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Bachmann has a history of religious conservativism to an extreme that many find troubling.

The inclusion of information like:

"The law school was accredited by the American Bar Association but folded after less than a decade of operation. Oral Roberts University describes itself as 'a charismatic university, founded in the fires of evangelism and upon the unchanging precepts of the Bible', built in accord with 'God’s commission to Oral Roberts' to "Raise up your students to hear My voice...Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased."'"

--to me this reads as she went to a law school more concerned about Jesus than about actually teaching law and making good lawyers.

"Uncharacteristically, she did not focus all of her energies on securing the position and instead traveled around the state of Minnesota speaking with EdWatch."

--unfortunately someone concerned with article length slashed out the information that she went to the MN GOP and wanted them to help her become a state legislator they told her go for school board first. Edwatch is another Christian conservative group. This was the most neutral wording I could use to say she never wanted the school board position, her statewide popularity in Minnesota conservative circles had been gained by being Edwatch's champion and so instead of pursuing the school board position which she thought beneath her she continued to cultivate statewide notierity by, even the day before the election, being hundreds of miles away from Stillwater to speak for EdWatch. Most of that information has been slashed from the article by others who prefer a notecard version of encyclopedia articles instead of anything more authoritive. If it wouldn't fit on the back of a ceral box it shouldn't be in wikipedia apparently. There was massive amounts of sourced and refrenced material in this article that has been deleted, deletions protested and protests voted down. Article split to sub-articles to try and address these concerns, sub-articles nominated for deletion by others, nominations argued against, votes lost, sub-articles deleted. Despite there being hundred of wikiarticles about poker and its multiple variants, politicians making decisions that impact millions of people are not as important as playing cards or cruft about The Simpson or Family Guy apparently.

I included a paraphrase of what Buchanan said about the Ayers coffee, to show that, yes, it was the same Pat everyone knows and that he was on the Republican's message that Bachmann had taken to an (even for Pat) wild conclusion. The paraphrase could be restated to something like "he took Obama to task for the coffee hosted by Ayers for his campaign, that Buchanan called the opening of his campaign for state legislator". It does seem to tie his comments back to Bachmanns more effectively, but perhaps is unneccessary.

I used to fight for a vision of Wikipedia being the most complete and authoritive source for information available (as no page limits and links in the table of contents to jump to what you want and avoid anything you dont) but I am long over that now. I occasionaly come back to post information, as writing helps me process it within my own mind. But Wikipedia seems set on being a rather shallow overview of whatever topic your intrested in and that's all.

Even most of the fully sourced information about her "investigate congress" comments looks set for deletion, as per these types of comments on the articles discussion page:

"Not involved and don't intend to be. But the length of the section on her comments about investigating congress is absurd. POV, recentism, it's got it all, plus the scurillous (sp?) mccarthy references. The whole bit should be five sentences, tops.Bali ultimate (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)"

So if you want to get in some edits before all of it is deleted down to 5 sentences - have at it. -Wowaconia (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

From our own entry on Piracy, "Maritime piracy, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982, consists of any criminal acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or aircraft that is directed on the high seas against another ship, aircraft, or against persons or property on board a ship or aircraft. Piracy can also be committed against a ship, aircraft, persons, or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state."

Please explain how Sea Shepherd's actions are in any way distinct from this, and why "Piracy" therefore shouldn't be listed as a focus of the group. That's certainly what the group is known for. Just because something isn't nice to them doesn't mean it's not NPOV. Alg8662 (talk) 17:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What is your take on the terrorism response section? I posted on the talk page that it harms the article (see SSCS talk page) and could be handled in one paragraph in the "criticism" section. Good series of edits on that article, BTW. Keep up the good work~ 24.21.105.252 (talk) 08:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to let you know that I recently copied the above image that you uploaded to Wikipedia over to WikiMedia Commons, the Wikimedia central media repository for all free media. The image was either individually tagged or was in a category tagged with the {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons}} template. Your image is now available to all Wikimedia projects at the following location: Commons:File:Bush announces Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003.jpg. During the move I changed the name of the image to better reflect Naming Conventions policy, duplicate file name and/or Commons naming restrictions. Any links to the image has been updated to reflect the new name as it exists now on Commons. The original version of the image uploaded to Wikipedia has been tagged with WP:CSD#F8. Cheers!